>> good morning coming up on msnbc's "your business" an apparel company grows its business by influencing social influencers. a farming company, and chet pipkin on thoughtful risk taking and why authenticity is essential for success. let's grow fast and grow far. that's coming up next on "your business". hi everyone i'm j. j.

ramberg and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your business. a few tickets to paradise paid off for the brand rich or poor. when they came up with a risky influence or market initiative everyone thought they were crazy pch one trip to hawaii for six like minded business owners had incredible results from a company, above and beyond what they need could have expected. >> some are striped, some are cool designs, some come in bright colors. the company rich or poorer makes socks that stand out in your sock drawer. >> we became buddies in spin class. he had ideas for business, i had

been in the fashion industry. he said socks and when i looked at the market i was like there was nothing in the middle range. we thought it was a great idea and nobody has figured it out or it's going to be a terrible idea and there's a reason nobody is doing it. >> it wasn't a terrible idea. the company took off and not only spawned sales but also a few other things along the way. >> we have conversations with folks, i was sitting on a plane next to a gal and i was wearing the socks and that was a conversation starter and we ended up getting married. >> in recent years it's grown to a power house in the industry. they've grown their brand to boxers and bra lets to t-shirts. >> adding into the mix has allowed us to tell a much bigger story as a brad. >> but e va and tim understand that success can be fleeting and they have to stay relevant. they look towards influence

marketing. where people from you tube stars to bloggers get paid to push product out through their social media channels. when they decided to give it a go, they struggled. the concept didn't feel authentic. >> i was like this doesn't make sense for us. it isn't a great execution because i think the con summer is start enough, everybody knows influencers are getting paid to push the product. >> they thought about who else has influence and they landed on other brand owners. >> we flip it had way we were looking at this and said wait a second, instead of working with media partners, which we do, but let's look at other brands as media partners and create something great. >> instead of paying traditional influencers, they played for five fellow entrepreneurs to

come to hawaii for a vacation for lots of bonds over business. they called it the just more trip. >> internally everyone thought we were crazy and mostly it was like yeah you want to go to hawaii with a bunch of people. which i understand. it's a very, very reasonable reaction. >> the hope was by creating an incredible experience the ceos would then postabout the trip. the guest guess list was well cure rated and it wasn't determined by who had the most followers they were looking for people who embodied the richer poorer spirit. they also looked for story tellers. it included jen of bando. he held len ben fete. >> people asked why would you go after an ice cream company but

something that jenny's created it is the best ice cream on ear earth. it's $14 for a small pint, which seems expensive but the consumer that's buying that values quality. so we believe that is going to be same consumer that's going to buy a t-shirt from us or a pair of socks. >> they paid for the trip but that was it. nothing was put in writing in terms of what was expected from each of the travellers. >> there was zero contracts or firm expectations put in play. we spent about $25,000 to take the trip for six days, maybe a little bit less. everyone knows richer poorer is paying for this, this is something we put together as a brand initiative. so everyone is under the same assumption that we should be posting content and tagging each other, but they want to, right? that's the difference. >> you're building a community and that's how eva thinks.

and by putting these people together who she knew would have a lot of common we will support each other down the road. and that's much more important i think than investing in a flash in the pan one shot influencer kind of thing. >> there was no product insergs. it was what is the brand of richer poorer mean and what have they created in the group? >> the trip was a success. richer poorer received millions of impressions as a direct result of the adventure. they were able to launch posttrip marketing initiatives. like just more give aways that gave them access to hundreds of thousands of new e-mails. >> there's the follower growth but the comments and the engagement, it's like wow this is an incredible thing that richer poorer would put this together. >> it builds momentum, what are

they going to do next. it's like follow along for the next adventure. and with the just more trip we set the bar how we are going to be marketing going forward. over our 12 seasons we have seen over and over again how companies that take imaginative needs -- that is what's happening in new jersey where the owner of a vertical farming business is finding new ways to get food on your table. >> the classic american farm conjures family scenes, vast planes, sunny skies and endless greeneries. but just 10 miles from one of the biggest cities in the world, in a new jersey warehouse,

irving feign is redefining farming. >> welcome to the farm. we're a hundred times more productive than farmland and we save water. >> a completely indoor farm, it uses led lights and water to produce over 100 types of vegetables. some you might not know existed. >> this is a purple pock choi. >> what? >> pock choi. you eat it right off the plant. >> it actually tastes fresh. >> it's about as fresh as can you get. >> a fresh approach to feeding the world's growing population. on track to reach 10 billion people according to the united nations. >> we need 50 to 60% more food and those people are living around cities. so how do you provide food to cities? >> between 2009 and 2014, number

of indoor growing facilities in the u.s. has doubled. produce grown indoors is a wave of the future. >> we need to come up with approaches to ensure that humanity will have food and the hydroponic systems will be part of it. >> what about people that say this isn't be natural? >> our plants are growing the same way that a plant grows outside and a lot of our plants are growing a healthier and cleaner way than the way produce outside is. there's no pesticides or chemicals on this. >> so 365 days a year you can grow inside. >> absolute. >> i using sensors, information is gathered about each plant and stoe sent to a computer system where it's analyzed and adjustments

are made. >> if i scald you up and said i want something extra spicy, you can create that. >> yes. we can change the way crops taste. we can make butter head lettuce more bitter. >> and they do. which is why experts like tom a kalico feels about it. >> try that. >> that's a kick. >> the intensity of the flavor goes with his favorite dishes. >> that's awesome. >> back at bowery, they claim the best vegetables are grown right next door. >> our product is 24 to 48 hours from when we harvest it to when it reaches store shelves or

tables. so it's better tasting, it's fresher, it's just a better product. >> our next guest says when he started advising companies on growth strategies you knew who your competitors were, information was scarce and communicating with customers was a one way street. today everything is different. he also noticed three things that companies with significant growth have discovered. eddie grow is a think tank on economic growth. he's also an author. >> 20/20/20 rule. what is it. >> it's my rule of thumb. if you have a rapid decision to

make in this competition, the three things you need to do is take a step back and say is what i'm trying to solve for, does 20% of the popular lags have the unmet need? bigger than that, it's die luted and watered down, if it's too small it's not scaleable. >> 20% seems high to me. if we talk about a niche business that might have great potential. >> it doesn't mean you have to start out hitting 20% of but eventually a fifth of the market should resonate with this idea. if do you that, you should be in great shape. >> 20%. >> that fill it is market. the second 20 is that unmet need has to have a 20 year trajectory. many companies are worried about a fad so you have to figure out does this fit my need or have a 20-year need for me to invest

in. >> interestingly with that it may not be in the form, because technology changes, but will there be a need in some form or another. >> that's right. you have to look at it how the con summer consumer is looking at it, is this a need they've been trying to solve for 20 years or so. >> got it. >> the last 20 if you do it correctly, it's popping in the top 20 o markets of your category, so the local markets or city form. that need is happening in a much more rapid pace. it makes it easier to activate your strategy if you know where to do it and you can invest focussed way but also do it for the future as well. >> i want to go back to not a fad. it's 20 projec projectory. i want to think of sole cycle.

it's an exercise class, doing incredibly well. would you say someone thought 20 years from now this is going to be around? >> the question to me is, it's not just whether it's a business like sole cycle will be around for 20 years but is it a problem that's been around that people have been trying to figure out a solution for? i think this notion of exercise and being fit is hard and you need other people to help you. that is an evergreen need. as long as they stay on the cusp of that they should be in great shape. it may not always be in the way it's mentioned. >> right. now we may be doing it at home. >> exactly. >> when we talk about 20%. would you say it's the biggest markets? >> some of the local markets -- every business i find, you assume that it's the national businesses and my favorite -- my least favorite words in business

are average. and national average comes after that because everyone assumes it's the same. where the truth of the matter is the local markets are very spiky. i work in hot dogs, of the 75 local markets, there were 10 that ball pork found drove the market they needed to get around. so they needed a local strategy and if they did that, they made money and the competitors had no idea what they were doing. >> think about how facebook started or so many places, they start in these local markets and eventually become bigger but it is very stealth for a lot of these companies. >> the most disruptive companies start locally. kuerig started in offices in the northeast. they decided office coffees sucks before taking on

starbucks. >> i love the 20/20/20 rule. congratulations on your book. >> thank you, j.j. >> we've all found ourselves in truly toxic work environments and it is terrible. angry people can zap our productivity and hurt our businesses. if you see your company is becoming toxic you have to nip that in the bud. here's five district attorney ways to start to fix thing. >> if possible keep an open door policy. your employees will tell you there's a problem if you are approachable and regularly speak to them one on one. two, squash bully behavior. the work place is no place for bullies. if you discovery one is degrading the others, take mead action. three, be human, stress can bring out the worst in people. but it's important to remember that your employees are human. give them room to make mistakes and reward them for good work.

four provide adequate training work with hr to develop solid work place policies and crea create training programs. >> burn out is real, even the best worker needs to recharge. give them time to relax and take time to recharge themselves and their families. bellkin is a giant in technology. chet pip kin has been at the help of the company. he started it in his parents garage with little knowledge of the hard wair and software world. here's some of his advice on growing a successful company in learning from the pros.

>> back in the early '80s. i started to contemplate what are the transformative change that is might be taking place in the world and to me it seemed clear, almost immediately, it could be something to do around pcs. so literally going into shops that sold computers and tech and reading everything that i could find and it was really fragmented market. so there are all different kinds of brands making pcs and all different kinds of brands that are making peripherals to go with pcs. i'm learning, watching, asking questions and the intend of the questions was to validate the opportunity that i thought i was seeing and then to get a little bit more fidelity and precision around it so that we could start to turn that into an actual

product. ♪ >> we came up with this model that hey we're the go-to brand to make anything work with anything. there are a few flaws in that thinking. one of the flaws was we didn't know how to make anything work with anything. so the request would come in, we wouldn't know how to solve that issue and then wef we would have to work hard to figure out how to make that happen. the fear of not being able to do it was a good motivator to work to get it figured out. so failure was not an option. encourage and celebrate thoughtful risk taking. and there is, inevitably a leap of faith that needs to be made that we're going to sustain

delivery of enough services that people are clam moring to get their hands on. again never close that leap of faith to complete closure where there's no risk whatsoever, but it's my job to make that leap s. that helps to increase certainty and the likelihood of good outcomes. the opportunity studio, did you know that they were told that steve jobs said that it was his favorite product at that show? i was the worst manager in the world. i was terrible. i was horrific. and looking back i'm just embarrassed. people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. and to listen and to take in and to get to know all of us have had different journeys as people. >> watching you do this i'm definitely getting the impression you've done one or

two of these before. >> this place isn't about me. i've got the role that i play day in and day out, but it is about the several thousand people that are working here. i feel privileged to be able to work with them, but, yeah, it's absolutely about them, it isn't about me. >> still to come, how to get your employees to communicate more effectively. and or brain trust has some great ideas on how you can get the most out of your marketing dollars. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go!

oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. there are technical people who speak technically and technical people who speak with more open communication. do you think that more people who are pitching their company or talking about their ideas need to be more effective at the interpersonal aspect of their communication? >> if you're talking to and you're pitching your company to a vc you tell them the story that they can actually listen to, understand and hear in their language. if you're pitching for your company to get more employees and you're pitching to technology people and you want to get, you know, more developers, then it's important to pitch and to create the story

much more around the technology and excite them in a way that they will think, oh, this is really a good place that i want to work. but equally if you're pitching your story or business idea to consumers and you need them to buy from you, it's important that they understand the benefits of what they're going to get. so i think to wrap this all up, it's important to understand your audience and to really understand what is going to motivate them and excite them and get them to buy in to what you're trying to sell them. >> time now for the brain trust where i get to dig into issues that a lot of us are thinking about with people who have been through them. today we are tariq fareed the founder of edible arrangements. how big is it now? >> 1,300 stores and 11 countries. >> congratulations on that. >> thank you. trent frazier who just launched a tequila brand vulcan. >> okay. and this was after how many years working for hennessy. >> almost a decade now.

>> congratulations to you, too. >> thank you, j.j. >> i want to talk about where to spend your marketing dollars. i was inspired to talk about this topic because you had a small party to launch this brand that cost you a lot of money. how do you decide if you should take those dollars, have a few people or take them and reach a lot of people? >> yeah, there's no definitive answer on this one, although i do have a preference which i'll share, but it really -- you have to come back to does it serve and meet your mission vision and objectives, that's the most important thing because there's always going to be a place for the biggest splashy events but my preference is to be small. i think the most important thing for me is to be memorable and to be authentic. and for those two things to occur it's a little bit harder as soon as you start getting to 100 or 200 or 300 people or more than that. my preference is to be smaller, i much prefer the smaller intimate engaged dinners, hence why we did a 30 or 40 person

dinner because you really do connect. >> how do you take those dollars, right, let's just say thousands of dollars, spend it on 30 or 40 people and get the same reach as you would if you just did facebook ads? and you could reach thousands of people. >> for us either it's national but mostly for us local. so it's our franchises, we're opening a store, we want to bring people in because for us it's all about sampling and influencing those 2,500. the magic we learned from a franchisee is i need to connect with 2,500 people on facebook as quickly as possible. some people can do it through an event, others have to pay someone to do it. >> let's say you're doing it through a event. what do you have to do to make sure those 40 people that come there reach 2,500 people. >> for us when we send the invitations everyone is important to us, but you make sure that you bring few people in who have large followings,

then it will spread and go viral. a lot of these things tend to be spontaneous, at that point you do pick some things up, either there are kids there or other things that somebody will start to share. >> did you do anything specific at your event to say, okay, i know someone will take this picture, it will go on instagram. >> it is definitely about large follow ships, you can still have the same big powerful impact but with fewer as long as they have influence in the industries they come from. >> of course, you want large scale followship but really engagements. it's people that are beautifully engaged. stay here, do this, don't do this, that is more influential for me because it came from somewhere. we did do a few things that made it much more organically content covered, so by having a beautiful bar in this '60s beach cart, to have a tequila bar and

everybody wanted to take a photo. we didn't say you have to take a photo in front of this but people organically did it. same thing with a beautiful pergola of a beautiful moment and dinner party for 40, teak elites, plants -- >> so you made sure you had instagram worthy moments at the party. is there anything else you need to do? do you need to only invite people who have big or engaged followings. >> i don't think you can do that. in our business we nt could, we are going to send invites out to the town and try to get as many people as possible but then you get those three or four people that you want to be there. so that's very important. and then have something memorable happening. let the people share the product, let people experience it and have somebody taking pictures and sharing those pictures. that's what works for us. and our product is very shareable so when you -- people will share this, look, i just got this, wow, and they start to share and it spreads and everything and people will come

back. >> we live in people a socially driven world, if you give them the environment and the atmosphere that lends itself to their own coverage they're going to do it. >> thanks both of you so much. i think this is such a fascinating topic because i like the idea of a small party but it is tempting and sometimes right to just go spend that money on facebook ads, get as many eyeballs as you possibly can. >> very true. >> thanks so much. this week's your biz selfie comes from jenee davis owner of lucrative solutions in las vegas. they offer comprehensive custom call center solutions for companies big and small. it looks like someone else got in there, too. now why don't you pick up your cellphone and take a selfie of you and your business and send to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. include your name, the name of your business and the location and use the #yourbizselfie. we look nord to seeing them.

thank you so much for joining us today. we love hearing from you, so you can e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com with any questions you have or any comments, also please go to our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. we put up all the pieces from today's show plus a lot more we've done for you. don't forget to connect with us on our digital and social media platforms, too. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then i'm j.j. ramberg and remember we make your business our business. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah...

(laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. ♪ good morning and welcome to "politics nation." a busy show today. after thousands of people gathered yesterday throughout the country to denounce white supremacy and naziism, mean while president trump changed his tone and offered praise for the protesters. that's our lead story today. and in just a moment a big